For the month of the tenth anniversary
of the great Archbishop Lefebvre's death,
we have the pleasure of offering you not
only the enclosed portrait of him (from Virginia),
but also good news of the Society of St.
Pius X which he founded; it is standing firm
in the face of Rome's recent efforts to buy
it back into the Conciliar Church. One may
never put one's trust in man, as last month's
letter sternly recalled, following Jeremiah
(XVII, 5-8). But one may, and must, put one's
trust in God, with whom the Archbishop will
certainly have been interceding for us.

Here is the sequence of events. In early
December of last year, Cardinal Castrillon
Hoyos, with a mandate from the Pope to bring
to an end the 13-year old " schism"
(as Rome seems it) of the Society of St.
Pius X, invited Bishop Bernard Fellay, the
Sociey's Superior General, to Rome to see
the Pope. On December 29 and 30 the Cardinal
had two long talks with Bishop Fellay, including
a brief encounter with the Pope where New
Year greetings were exchanged, and little
else. On January 13, SSPX leaders met in
Switzerland to consider the Cardinal's generous-looking
proposals, decided that Rome must first liberate
the Tridentine Mass and null the 1988 " excommunication"
of the four SSPX bishops, before the SSPX
will ever sit down to negotiate with Rome
and end to the " schism" .

A few days later Bishop Fellay conveyed
this decision to the Cardinal. A few weeks
later the Cardinal replied verbally (not
in writing!) to an SSPX priest in Rome, firstly
that the Tridentine Mass is not banned but
that Rome cannot be expected to say so in
public (!); secondly, that the " lifting"
of the " excommunication" would
form part of a package deal re-integrating
the SSPX into the mainstream Church.

On February 19, two SSPX priests, mandated
by Bishop Fellay, gently but firmly brought
the Cardinal to understand that the SSPX
had meant what it said when it said one month
previously that EITHER Rome must liberate
the Tridentine Mass for all priests, OR the
SSPX will not even sit down to begin negotiating.
The Cardinal has the reputation of a powerful
negotiator who gets what he wants, and in
a variety of ways since last summer he has
made it clear that he and the Pope want to
get the SSPX " back into the Church"
(as Rome sees it). That is why he did not
want to accept that the Society was taking
such a principled stand on the Mass of the
old religion, hated by all Conciliarists,
but after three and a half hours of talking,
he had to accept that that was the Society's
pre-condition for any further negotiations.

One need wish the Cardinal no ill. Bishop
Fellay's spokesman at this February 19 meeting
commented that in any normal circumstances
the Cardinal's loyalty to the Pope and his
desire to serve him would be touching. Cardinal
Castrillon surely desires to bring the SSPX
" back into the Church" and he may
even sincerely wish the Society well. But
so little does he (or the Pope, then) grasp
the issue at stake that our spokesman was
at a loss " in what language to speak
to him" . And it was horrifying, he said
(" effroyable" in French), to realize
how the highest of churchmen in Rome today
could be so ignorant of the essentials of
the true Faith!

We are reminded of the carefully weighed
words of Archbishop Lefebvre before the " excommunication"
of June, 1988: " I do not think we can
say that Rome has not lost the Faith" .
Also of what he said more than once after
the " excommunication" , namely that
Rome having thereby given final proof of
its unwillingness of inability to look after
the Faith, then from that time onwards any
discussions with Rome could no longer be
juridical or canonical, they would have to
be dogmatic. In other words, the problem
between the SSPX and Rome was no longer a
question of legal nuts and bolts, it was
a question of basic doctrine, and could only
be handled as such. The February 19 meeting
in which the Cardinal insisted on nuts and
bolts, shows how right the Archbishop was.
Coming out of three and a half hours with
the Cardinal, our spokesman said he was more
convinced than ever that the Society's firm
stand was the right one. But how few Catholics
can yet see that! The BASIC THEOLOGY of Conciliarism,
that infernally subtle falsification of Catholicism
emerging from the Second Vatican Council,
is the real problem between this Rome and
the Society.

However, Cardinal Castrillion is not
a man easily stopped. On February 19, he
told our priests that four new members would
be added to the Ecclesia Dei Commission (set
up to handle the 1988 refugees replace Ecclesia
Dei as soon as (!) there is an agreement
with the SSPX. On February 24, these four
names were publicly announced by Rome, and
they are heads of the four departments that
will be most concerned by a Rome-SSPX deal:
Cardinal Ratzinger (Doctrine), Cardinal Medina
(Liturgy), Archbishop Herranz (Canon Law),
and Cardinal Bille (primate of the French
bishops).

Now these are four heavyweight churchmen
being added to a lightweight Commission,
given the fact that important Congregations
or dicasteries of the Roman Curia rarely
include more than one Cardinal. But when
we add Cardinal Castrillon, here there will
be four! There are two opposite interpretations
of this unusual move.

Either, as I was told by an English
journalist who claims to have contacts high
up in the Roman Curia, these four celebrities
are being added to Ecclesia Dei in order
to put brakes on Cardinal Castrillon, who
is moving towards a Rome-SSPX deal altogether
too fast for the liking of Conciliar Romans
who fear the SSPX acting like a Trojan horse
if it is given re-entry within the walls
of their official Church. Or, on the contrary,
as Cardinal Castrillon told our two priests
on February 19, these powerful men are being
brought on board in order to make the supposedly
imminent Rome-SSPX deal work. In this case,
the unusual move corresponds to the Cardinal's
expressed desire to have the agreement concluded
by Easter!

Such a hurry may also correspond to
Rome's public announcement on February 26
of an extraordinary Consistory of Cardinals
to be held things, the Petrine ministry and
episcopal collegiality." A Roman newspaper
interprets this announcement as meaning that
the Cardinals will study " the role and
functions of the primacy of the Bishop of
Rome as well as...the ministry of bishops
united among themselves and in communion
with the Pontiff" .

In plain English, the Conciliarists
in Rome are planning, in accordance with
Vatican II, to do away with the Pope, and
replace him by some committee of cardinals
and/or bishops. But the Conciliarists are
well aware that for many Catholics still
within their Novus Ordo, this might prove
the last straw. If, in addition to everything
else Catholic which " the spirit of Vatican
II" has taken away from them, Catholics
lost also their Holy Father, then they might
really look for some Catholic refuge in which
to ride out the storm. At which point, if
there simply was no longer any such refuge,
many could lose heart and feel obliged to
go along even with the destruction of the
Papacy. But if there was still in existence
a refuge like the SSPX, proclaiming itself
the staunch defender of the old-fashioned
Catholic Papacy, then such distressed Catholics
would have somewhere to go, and the numbers
and strength of the SSPX might grow alarmingly.

So, is the unprecedented extension of
the temporary Ecclesia Dei Commission proof
that Rome wants to bring in the SSPX, or
proof that Rome wants to push it away? Either
way, the story is by no means over.

If the Cardinal has his foot on the
accelerator, then he must come up with new
enticements to draw the SSPX out of its Traditional
fortress, and we must continue to trust God
and to pray to the Archbishop that the Society
neither flinch nor waver. On the other hand,
if the Cardinal's colleagues have their foot
on his brakes, then Rome must fall back on
its 13-year old policy of smothering the
SSPX in silence, a silence so remarkably
broken by the recent initiatives of Cardinal
Castrillon. And in that case, we clergy and
laity of the Society must possess our souls
in patience, and continue to practice humbly
and steadily the Catholic Faith of all time.
But if quiet does return, for sure and certain
it is simply a matter of time before another
Cardinal Castrillon will be coming back to
busy himself with the Society! Roman error
cannot leave the Truth alone.

Inevitably, our thoughts come back to
the great Archbishop Lefebvre. Ten years
since he died! But as we always knew, he
is the master of Rome. What a man of God!
What a man! He is by no means yet generally
vindicated, but by his magnificent fidelity
to the Truth when everyone else was, in a
collective madness infecting even Cardinals
and Popes, abandoning it, he sits astride
the Catholic Truth for all future generations,
so that tomorrow or the day after, all Catholics
without exception will be profoundly grateful
to him.

And we have known him sooner than most.
Dear readers, you and I are lucky creatures!
Let us only be faithful! Let us do Lenten
penances for fidelity!

Most sincerely yours in Christ,

+ Richard Williamson

--- In ctngreg@y..., bbasile@n... wrote:
> > Such is the sacred heritage
> > which the founder of our Priestly
Fraternity of
> > Saint Pius X, Archbishop Lefebvre,
has entrusted to
> > us: " It is clear, it is evident
that the entire
> > drama between Ece and Rome is
due to the problem
> > of the mass. (.) We are convinced
that the new rite
> > of Mass expresses a new faith,
a faith which is not
> > ours, a faith which is not the
Catholic Faith; (.)
> > that this new rite is misleading
and, if I may say,
> > supposes another conception of
the Catholic
> > Religion. (.)

I would like to point out in a little stronger
terms that the above
quote is very problematical and one could
easily say that it was
pointing to the notion that the Novus Ordo
is heretical (and
therefore the statement would be a denial
of the indefectablity of
the Church).

I think part of the problem is that Bp. Fellay
uses a statement of
Abp. Lefevbre as the thesis for their book
on the liturgy, but Abp.
Lefevbre was known to make some rash statements
which he corrected
later, and the above does not state (as it
should) that Abp. Lefevbre
accepted that the Novus Ordo was a valid
Catholic rite of Mass.
There certainly could have been a better
statement about the New Mass
that could have been used.

But to say that the New Rite expresses a
" new faith" could easily be
(mis)understood to mean that the text of
the Novus Ordo is heretical.
It not possible to believe that the Pope
and all of the bishops of
the Roman rite could formally accept a heretical
rite of Mass,
without believing that the Church has been
entirely destroyed and
that the Faith has been lost.

Aside from the fact that Our Lord taught
that the Church would never
fail in the Faith, there is nothing in the
text of the Novus Ordo
that can be construed as heretical anyway.
So, it is not correct to say that the Novus
Ordo expresses a " new
faith" , unless one means that " elements
of the New Rite seem to
express ideas that are contrary to the Roman
tradition, and thus can
indirectly result in a loss of faith" .

Bill Basile

--- In ctngreg@y..., jfmmersch@a... wrote:
> This article was yesterday also printed
int the official daily
bulletin of
> the vatican secretary of state, who
used in the curia and from the
papal
> nuntio`s.
> It means no confirmation by the secretary
of state, but I seems a
serious
> " news" for the papal stuff.
>
> J. Mersch
>
> ATICAN UPDATE FROM CATHOLIC WORLD NEWS
FOR MARCH 28, 2001
>
>
>
>
Pope, Cardinals Meet To Discuss SSPX
>
>
VATICAN, Mar. 28, 01 (CWNews.com) - Pope
John Paul II brought
together
> the heads of the curial dicasteries
on March 22 to consult with
them on the
> possible results of the dialogue started
with the Society of St.
Pius X,
> according to the Milan newspaper Il
Foglio on Tuesday.
>
>
Il Foglio said the Pope and cardinals spoke
about the
possibility of
> rescinding the 1988 excommunication
of the Lefebvrist movement. Two
solutions
> were presented, that of a personal prelature
identical to that of
Opus Dei or
> that of an apostolic vicariate which
would offer the movement
almost total
> autonomy from diocesan bishops.
>
>
>
Two cardinals were apparently opposed to
the idea, according
to Il
> Foglio, namely Cardinal Walter Kasper,
president of the Pontifical
Council
> for the Promotion of Christian Unity,
and Cardinal Mario Francesco
Pompedda,
> prefect of the Tribunal of the Apostolic
Signature. These two
cardinals
> reportedly renewed the arguments of
certain French bishops who were
opposed
> to a rapprochement with the Lefebvrist
movement.
>
>
>
In addition, a book originating with the
Society of Saint
Pius X
> recently republished in France and entitled,
" The Problem of
Liturgical
> Reform, A Theological and Liturgical
Study," was reportedly, during
the
> meeting, a significant point in favor
of those who would like the
current
> situation to remain in place. Indeed,
this book includes in its
foreword the
> " Address to the Holy Father,"
written on February 2, 2001 by Bishop
Fellay,
> superior of the society, which recalls
point by point criticisms by
> Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of the " new
liturgy."
>
>
>
Il Foglio said that after this consultation
the final
decision, which
> remains with John Paul, could be announced
at any time.